PDF Creation and Manipulation Tools

Market overview of recommendable PDF creation and manipulation tools, especially in connection with the creation of technical documentation and user assistance

Adobe Acrobat

Price: approx. $299 (Standard) and $449 (Professional); also available as part of the Technical Communication Suite

Nuance PDF Converter Professional

Price: approx. $100

ABBYY PDF Transformer and ABBYY FineReader

Price: approx. €65 / €139

Nitro PDF Professional

Price: approx. $100; Nitro PDF Professional OCR approx. $120

gDoc Fusion

Price: approx. €100

Amyuni PDF Suite

Price: approx. $99

Foxit PDF Creator, Foxit PDF Page Organizer, Foxit PDF Editor

Price: approx. $30, $59, $99

PDF Professionell

(Only available in German)

Price: approx. €36

PDF Studio for Linux, Mac & Windows

Price: approx. $60

PDF-XChange PRO

Price: approx. €54

Perfect PDF

Price: approx. € 65

PDFCreator

Acts as a printer driver. Allows you to create PDF files from any document that you can print.

Price: free (Open Source)

PrimoPDF

Printer driver that creates PDF files.

Price: free (Freeware)

Ghostscript and GSView

Can convert PostScript files into PDF files. The add-on GSView allows you to view both PostScript and PDF files on screen, to print them, and to export them to bitmap formats.

Price: free (Open Source)

PDF Revu

Provides PDF creation, markup and editing.

Price: starting at approx. $179

Infix PDF Editor

PDF editor that works like a word processor, with search & replace, reflow and rejustify.

Price: approx. $99

PDFTK Builder

Graphical user interface to the Windows version of the open source tool PDFTK. Allows you to split PDF files and to insert, rearrange and remove pages.

Price: free (Open Source)

pdfKorrektor

Inserts proofreader’s marks into PDF files. Only available in German.

Price: approx. €295

PDF Accessibility Checker (PAC)

Tests PDF files for accessibility issues.

Price: free (Freeware)

PDFill PDF Tools

Provides functions to merge and split PDF files, to reorder and delete pages, as well as to add headers and footers.

Price: free (Freeware)

A-PDF Number Pro

Automatically adds page numbers to PDF files.

Price: approx. $35

Able2Doc Professional

Converts PDF files to Word documents. Also converts image PDFs into editable Word documents, using OCR.

Price: approx. $70

Pdf995

Provides a rich set of PDF manipulation functions.

Price: free (Freeware)

PDF Rider

Simple utility, mainly for splitting and merging PDF files.

Price: free (Open Source)

PDFedit

Feature-rich source library and GUI for manipulating PDF documents.

Price: free (Open Source)

PDFsam

Tool for splitting and merging PDF documents, and for visually reordering pages.

Price: free (Open Source)

PDF to Word

Converts PDF files to editable Microsoft Word documents using the same technology as Nitro PDF.

Price: free (Web Application)

Adobe Reader

Price: free (Freeware)

Foxit Reader

Alternative PDF reader. Small size, fast launch speed, various editing tools.

Price: free (Freeware)

PDF-XChange Viewer

PDF reader which also allows to edit and annotate a PDF file.

Price: free (Freeware)

Nuance PDF Reader

Free PDF viewer. Also allows you to annotate PDF files.

Price: free (Freeware)

SlimPDF Reader

Extremely small PDF reader.

Price: free (Freeware)

Xpdf

PDF file viewer for Linux.

Price: free (Open Source)

Okular

Universal document viewer (including PDF and CHM) for KDE.

Price: free (Open Source)

Sumatra PDF

Basic PDF, XPS, DjVu, CBZ and CBR reader.

Price: free (Open Source)

Do you miss anything that we ought to mention? Did you find any information that’s incorrect or obsolete? Please help us to keep this page up to date and let us know. Thank you.

This page was last updated 12/2011.

Keywords relating to this page: tools - software - programs - utilities - PDF - creation - creating - PDF creators - editing - PDF editors - manipulation - manupulating - survey - overview - market overview - review.

 

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We can give you expert advice and individual training on creating and optimizing technical documentation, especially software documentation.

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